The Major Meets His Match. Annie Burrows

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СКАЧАТЬ very far.’

      ‘Far enough to prove your boast about being the only man to be able to do it was patently false.’ God, how he’d wanted to knock the sneering expression from Zeus’s face when he’d made that claim. Which was why he’d declared there wasn’t a horse he couldn’t ride, drunk or sober.

      Zeus shook his head this time as he stood over Jack where he lay sprawled.

      But Jack didn’t care. For a few minutes, directly after he’d made the wager, all four of them had shaken off the gloom that had been hanging over them like a pall. They’d even laughed and started calling each other by the silly names they’d given each other at school as they staggered round to the stables. They’d sobered slightly when Lucifer had rolled his eyes at them and snorted indignantly when they’d approached his stall. Archie had even suggested, albeit timidly, that he was sure nobody would mind if Jack withdrew his claim.

      ‘Draw back from a bet? What kind of man do you think I am?’ Jack had retorted. And Zeus had grabbed the stallion’s halter and led the animal out into the streets before anyone could talk sense into either of them.

      Good God. Zeus had been as intent on carrying through on the wager as Jack himself. Did that mean...?

      Was there still something of the old Zeus left? Deep under all that sarcasm and sneering? He’d certainly been the one to arrange this reunion. And he’d also made sure they’d been given a chance to laugh at Jack’s antics, the way they’d done so many times at school. They’d certainly all been roaring with laughter as Lucifer had shot off, with Jack clinging to his mane. And so sweet had been that sound that Jack hadn’t cared that the beast had unseated him before he’d managed one circuit of the park.

      ‘I still maintain that girl was not flirting with us,’ he said defiantly. Was he imagining it, or was there an answering gleam in Zeus’s eyes? As though he was relishing having someone refusing to lie down and roll over at his bidding.

      Ah.

      Was that why he’d become so jaded? Because nobody challenged him any more? It would explain why he’d jumped at the wager, ridiculous though it was. Why he’d whisked Lucifer out of his stall before the sleepy groom had a chance to fling a saddle on his back.

      Perhaps, even, why he’d gathered them all together in the first place.

      ‘She may not have been a lady, precisely,’ Jack continued. ‘But I stick to my guns about her not flirting with us. Else why would she have set about us with her riding crop?’

      That had come as a shock, too, he had to admit. One moment she’d been melting into his arms, the next she was fighting him off. And she’d been kissing him so sweetly, after that initial hesitation, so shyly yet...hang on...shyly. With hesitation. As though she didn’t know quite what to do, but couldn’t help herself. As if she was catching fire, just as he’d been.

      One moment she was with him, and then...it was as if she’d come to her senses. As though she realised it was a stranger with whom she was rolling about on the grass.

      ‘I would wager,’ he said, a smile tugging at his lips as he recalled and re-examined her every reaction, ‘that not only was she not flirting, but that she was an innocent, to boot.’

      That would explain it all. That gasp of shock when he’d first started kissing her. Her inexpert, almost clumsy, yet uninhibited response. Until the very moment when she’d hauled up the drawbridge and slammed down the portcullis. The moment when she remembered she was dabbling in sin.

      ‘And I don’t care what you think, Zeus,’ he said with determination. ‘We owe that girl an apology. Well, I do, anyway. Shouldn’t have kissed her.’

      ‘She shouldn’t have put her face in the way of your lips, then,’ retorted Zeus.

      ‘No, no, the girl was only trying to see if I was injured.’ Which had been remarkably brave of her. Not many females would have come rushing to the aid of a stranger like that. Nor would they have been able to bring Zeus’s bad-tempered stallion under control, either.

      ‘Which is more than any of you have done,’ he finished pointedly.

      ‘You are not injured,’ said Zeus pithily. ‘You are indestructible. And I have that on the best authority.’

      ‘Must have been speaking to m’father.’

      ‘Your brother,’ Zeus corrected him.

      ‘Oh? Which one?’

      ‘I forget,’ said Zeus with a wave of his hand. ‘He did tell me he was Viscount Becconsall when he walked up to me in White’s and presumed friendship with me because of my friendship with you.’ His mouth twisted in distaste.

      ‘Could have been either of them, then,’ said Jack, who’d recently acquired the title himself. ‘Poor sod,’ he said, and not only because both his brothers were now dead, but because he could picture the reception such behaviour would have gained them. They hadn’t started calling him Zeus without good reason. From the very first day he’d attended school, he’d looked down on all the other boys from a very lofty height. He didn’t require an education, he’d informed anyone who would listen. He’d had perfectly good tutors at home. It was just that his father, who had suddenly developed radical tendencies, had decided the next Marquis of Rawcliffe ought to get to know how the lower orders lived.

      Jack chuckled at the vision of his bumptious brother attempting to take such a liberty with Zeus. ‘I can just see it. You gave him one of your freezing stares and raised your eyebrow at him.’

      ‘Not only my eyebrow, but also my quizzing glass,’ said Zeus, leaning down to offer him a hand, as though deciding Jack had been cluttering up the ground for long enough. ‘It had no effect. The man kept wittering on about what a charmed life you led. How you came through the bloodiest battles unscathed. As though you had some kind of lucky charm keeping you safe, instead of being willing to acknowledge that you owed your successes on the battlefield to your skill as a strategist, as well as personal valour.’

      Jack gasped as Zeus pulled him to his feet. That was the thing about him. He might be the most arrogant, conceited fellow he’d ever met, but he’d also been the first person to look beyond the way Jack clowned around to distract the bullies who’d been hounding Archie at school. The only person to take one look at him and see the intelligence he’d been at such pains to disguise.

      To believe in him.

      ‘Didn’t come through this tussle unscathed,’ he said, rubbing his posterior to explain his involuntary gasp. Zeus gave him one of his looks. The kind that told Jack he knew he was avoiding an issue, but was magnanimous enough to permit him to do so.

      ‘Which brings me back to the girl. Did you notice the way she spoke? And the horse? Expensive bit of blood and bone, that dappled grey.’

      ‘Hmmph,’ said Zeus. ‘I grant you that she may have been gently reared, but just because she speaks well and rides an expensive horse does not mean she is an innocent now.’

      ‘No, truly, I would stake my life on it.’

      ‘Since n-none of us know who she is,’ said Archie. ‘There is n-no way for us to v-verify your conc-clusion.’

      No, there wasn’t.

      Which СКАЧАТЬ